


Glass

by KaenOkami



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Bitterness, Caretaking, Drunkenness, Dysfunctional Family, Family Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Isolation, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-14 20:40:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18483958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaenOkami/pseuds/KaenOkami
Summary: Whitley never intended to go looking for his mother.





	Glass

_"Someday her child would be a stranger to her, and she would be strange to him."_  
\- Wendy Torrance, _The Shining_

~0~

Whitley never intended to go looking for his mother.

Not since he could remember, at any rate. In fact, it was quite the opposite; he went out of his way to avoid the woman when she was either staggering drunk or miserably sober. So that left only a very small space of buzzed and spacy, where Willow’s edges were dulled and her pain assuaged, in which he could stand to speak to her without wanting to smash glass against the wall the second the conversation ended. As with all the other unpleasant necessities of his life, however, he _could_ endure it in a perfectly civil fashion. This did not mean he looked forward to them, or was above looking for ways to get out of them.

But no matter what he did or thought, they always managed to find him anyway. He supposed that it was just his luck.

He could smell her before he saw her. This was not uncommon. He had heard his father before, half laughing and half bragging to his peers about the size and quality of their manor’s wine cellar, proudly naming the fine vintages that he would serve to friends, guests, and business associates. All the exquisitely varied tastes and scents. Whitley often wondered whether it was one cruel, colossal inside joke. No matter how well-aged or lovingly made it was, Whitley could not associate the acrid smell that clung to his mother’s skin and clothes with anything but ruin.

He knew, logically, that he was very close to his own room. He could take the all too tantalizing left turn coming up next to him and make it there; he had several shortcut-laden routes to it throughout the manor memorized, actually, for the sole purpose of evading people. But it never did turn out that way when it came to Willow. So for some reason that he could never quite put words to (and that he never cared to dwell on anyway), he passed it up, turned to the right instead, and was immediately faced with the consequences.

Willow was at the end of the windowless hallway, her face grayer than usual in the shadows. Whitley stopped at the opposite end to take in the familiar sight of her: trembling minutely in every inch, swaying slightly, with one hand on her no doubt fragile stomach and bracing herself against the wall with the other. Her eyes, with the dark bags beneath them, were turned down to the floor, and her labored breathing he could hear clearly from twenty feet away. He could see a bead of sweat running down her forehead.

Whitley stood there, hands reflexively folded, stone-faced and silent as the grave. As usual, she had no idea he was there. Even if she did look up and see him, there was no guarantee that she would remember his presence in the morning...or whenever she woke up later. He could still turn around, go and snarl at the first servant he saw for leaving his mother alone like this, and seek refuge in his bedroom. The afternoon was still young, after all. 

He sighed, and stepped forward. 

“Mother...”

Willow’s shoulders twitched, and she tried to stand still for a moment, listening to his soft footsteps on the marble floor as he reached her. She did not seem to be able to look any other way than down, and gave no sign she felt her son’s hands on her, taking her arm and draping it across his own shoulders. He was not at all as sturdy a support as the wall, being about a head and shoulders shorter than Willow, but he liked to think he was a more reliable one. 

“How much have you had?”

The question, asked in a low mutter, was perfunctory. The bitter-sour scent was stronger here, filling his nose and mouth, nauseating him. She was not in any state of unresponsiveness that would require him to run for more qualified help, nor was she in deep enough depths of drunkenness to snap and lash out. But she had definitely gone plummeting past that communicable gray area. Still, she decided to answer. 

“Enough.” Willow’s lips had stretched into a thin, open smile, and she looked as if she might like to laugh. Her voice was scraping glass, faint and ragged from alcohol and a constantly sliding scale of disuse and overuse. “Enough.”

Whitley huffed, and ground out through clenched teeth, “Not quite what I would call it.”

To that, he got no response at all.

Willow still retained moderate control of her limbs, so she did not need to be carried, only guided, to the next wing of the manor where the master bedroom was located. But it was a plodding, tedious walk for both of them. Every minute felt like an hour and every hall a mile long. Gods knew what was going on in Willow’s head, but Whitley was already internally rehearsing what he would hiss at anyone who dared pause and stare. Perhaps it was an unfair recitation, but it distracted him from what he was actually doing now, which was much less bitingly satisfying. 

They were not in the shadows for long. Very many of the manor’s windows were wide and without curtains, letting in the impossibly bright light that bathed Atlas and making every last white and ice-blue surface shine. Absently scrolling through articles on his Scroll, the home his grandfather had built was often lauded as exemplifying beautiful architecture. Beautiful or not, he wondered with irritation whether the beauty was really worth all this sun in his eyes. 

Willow, shutting her eyes and pressing her free hand to her no doubt throbbing head, seemed to be agreeing with him. “Ugh, what the hell?” she groaned. “Who’s doing that? Who’s here?”

Whitley sighed. “It’s just the sun, we’ll be out of it in a minute. No one’s here.”

“You...You’re sure?”

He looked out through the spotless glass, down to the courtyard below. It still felt strange, to not hear the muffled sounds of clashing metal and sharp instruction, and to see it devoid of either of his sisters. He had never actually explored a ruin of anywhere, but he assumed that it would evoke similar feelings.

The rest of their trek was, thankfully, uneventful. He caught the sound of footsteps approaching once or twice, but they quickly retreated when they heard him and his mother talking. Whitley didn’t know whether to be relieved or disgusted. 

Help, in theory, might be nice, but he was wary of how someone who was not one of Willow’s children might treat her, what they would _say_ afterward. There were no real friends in Atlas, and its gossip passed hands quicker and easier than money. The three of them treated her best, and even they made a sorry effort, in Whitley’s opinion. Winter tugged and dragged, mouth set in a tight, humiliated line. Weiss was not as strong or as angry, and was able to hold Willow up more easily, with her dancer’s build. But whether or not she knew better what words to say — they were always too soft for him to hear — she made her discomfort too clearly known for it to be really effective, and it either confused or pained their mother. 

As for him...He was not made for heavy lifting or toil, but if there was one thing that Whitley truly excelled at, it was putting on a mask of perfect decorum and pretending the waters of their lives were still and smooth. Willow wouldn’t fall for the act sober, but with her vision clouded and mind whirling, it wasn’t a half-bad calming antidote. 

Once they were both inside his parents’ bedroom, he nudged the door shut behind them with his foot before taking Willow over to the made bed. On being half laid and half dropped onto the covers, Willow’s body relaxed, but her eyes again shut tight and she ran a hand through her hair again. It slightly impeded Whitley’s hands already there, as he moved her onto her side and adjusted her arms and legs into proper recovery position. 

“E’rything’s...spinning...”

“I know,” Whitley murmured. “It’s not so bad. Relax and keep your eyes closed, it’ll end soon.”

Willow made no intelligible response, but continued to make small noises of discomfort as Whitley undid her tight bun, removed her shoes, and then went to the window to close the heavy blackout curtains unique to the manor’s bedrooms. When darkness washed over the room, Willow let out a long breath of relief.

“Much better...” 

Only one item left on the checklist, then. Whitley had to scrounge around the room for a minute before he found Willow’s red throw blanket, a gift from her father. There was no state where it wouldn’t comfort her, but the choking half-laugh she let out when he draped it over her still made his stomach turn.

“It’s...cool in here...This’s soft...” Willow’s eyes opened a fraction, pale and watery blue. They flicked aimlessly back and forth. “Where...Where’s Weiss?”

Whitley’s fists clenched behind his back. His voice was still pleasant, but he could not keep a small splinter of ice from it. 

“She ran away. All the way off to Beacon Academy.” He snorted. “She’s probably melting in the Valerian sun as we speak.”

There was a faint touch of hurt on Willow’s face, mingled with confusion. 

“Oh...Then who’s...” A spark of recognition momentarily brightened her eyes, and she nearly smiled. “Ohh...Whitley, it’s you.”

Whitley allowed her to shakily reach up and stroke his cheek with her fingertips. “That’s right. Was I fooling you somehow?”

Willow wasn’t listening to him, just staring blankly into his face. “Mm, you have...such clever eyes,” she mumbled. “Like your father...when he was young...”

The sound of bare knuckles against jawbones flashed in the back of Whitley’s head. His smirk went tight. “Is that a compliment, Mother?”

For a second, Willow’s eyes went wide, and her body still; he wasn’t certain what she’d forgotten or remembered in her stupor. Whatever it was, her hand dropped from his face, and then...Well. Try as he might, Whitley could never remember a time when he mother’s laughter hadn’t been as painfully bitter as it was now. 

“It’s whatever you want it to be, my son.” Her voice was still low and slurred, but clearer than it had been all day. 

Whitley gave her a brief, wondering look, and then sighed. “Sleep well, Mother.”

He turned on his heel and left the room again, opening the door only a crack and slipping through quickly, so the light would not enter again. Weiss was the only one of them who had used to hang back at the bedside even after Willow had passed out; she had stopped a few years ago after Jacques caught her in there and frightened her away. He knew it might be irresponsible, to leave her alone to sleep it off like that, and gods knew he hated to look as if he were storming out the way Winter would. But he simply could not stand to be in that conversation any longer. 

His walk back to his own bedroom was equally undisturbed, and in that silent refuge he took a seat in his armchair and reached for the nearest business textbook on his shelf. Nothing in this room absorbed or entertained him, he reflected as he thumbed through it, only distracted him. And speaking of which...

On the table next to him, there were drinking glasses and two bottles, one of water and one of wine: the same setup as there was near his mother’s side of the bed. The water was his own, the wine an ill-thought gift from one of his father’s associates. Jacques had laughed a little too loud and too long when it had been presented to his son. Perhaps he had made a joke, too, but Whitley had been too busy seeing red and trying not to, to pay attention. He grimaced, picturing glass shards and scarlet blood spattered over a white suit (an image that made his heart race in what he wasn’t sure was excitement or revulsion). 

He had to stay sharp, that was his primary claim to usefulness around here. And he certainly never wanted to fall into the same abyss that his mother had jumped into. But...Perhaps a bit of that gray space wouldn’t be so bad, to quiet the frantic buzzing in his head. 

So he uncorked the wine and poured a small bit into a glass, just a little bit more than the last time he’d tried it. He hadn’t liked it much then, he thought as he raised it to his lips, but maybe now...Maybe it was about being in the right or wrong frame of mind —

“Ugh!” 

It took real presence of mind for him to swallow the tiny sip instead of spitting it out, and to place the glass back on the table instead of slam it. His cheeks flushed and his lip curled in disgust as he tried to go back to reading, intermittently glaring at the glass as if it had personally offended him.

_Sour._


End file.
